


acolyte

by macabre



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Body Horror, Gen, Hurt Peter, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapped Peter, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Self-Harm, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Torture, extremely dark and depressing, lots of trigger warnings, peter is not okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2020-03-07 01:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18862645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: Peter looks down at his hands. The two regenerated fingers aren’t the same color as the others - they stick out, even at just a glance. “I wasn’t always like this.”“No, you weren’t, but you work all the same.” Tony folds the kid into his arms, slowly, so he can break away if he needs. Peter lets himself be held - he’ll let Tony hold him in an infant’s cradle on the couch, sometimes. He’d never in front of anyone else, but sometimes when the episodes are long and deep, Tony has to do something with his hands.(Tony tries to help Peter with the aftermath of extensive and extended torture.)





	1. Chapter 1

No one knew, and no one guessed, although maybe they should have. 

Peter was gone for over five months. After the first month, most of the people around Tony started to give the long side eye glances and gentle touches on the back that he knew meant, maybe it’s time to start other arrangements. 

May still believed, of course, and Natasha full on blew off Fury to keep working the case. Another month passed. Then another. 

The kid disappeared after school, and it was unclear if it was before or after he started patrolling. It doesn’t matter - Tony knows whoever took him knew exactly who and what he was to him. They knew they’d have to hide him so far off the radar that all the resources in the world wouldn’t be able to help Tony Stark. 

It’s almost six months when Natasha gets a lead that he’s sure will be another dead end; it’s not. When they extract the kid, the surroundings remind Tony so much of his interment that it makes him slow and stupid; he’s not the first one to reach Peter, even though he promised himself he would be.

“Tony?” Natasha’s voice is soft and fragile given the fury of her movements just moments ago. She asks him something, but he doesn’t catch it.

The body on the table has to be dead. Jesus, it smells like it and it certainly looks like it. 

“Tony!” She snaps at him. “Can you ID him or not?”

Right. Because the body is too mangled to tell for sure. Tony shifts closer. Behind him, he can hear Rhodey tying up some loose ends. A small explosion rocks through the surroundings, the lights overhead flickering on and off.

The boy is naked, covered in blood. It’s more the general shape of a human than a person. All one color. All one mottled texture. Skin has been flayed back in meticulous strips in spots, and not so meticulous spots in others. Tendons are visible - one tenses briefly in the right hand, just minutely, like someone hitting the key on the piano. The person in front of him is unconscious. Alive, but should they be?

Tony retracts a glove to push at the matted hair on the head, as gently as possible. He keeps the face plate down to separate himself from the smell as much as possible; he can feel the corners of his mind starting to disassociate. He hopes to God it isn’t Peter, and he hopes to God that if Peter is somewhere out there in this condition, he might be better off dead.

He pushes away some hair so he can look for the birthmark that’s on the back of Peter’s neck, right under his hairline. It’s impossible to tell for a moment.

His legs collapse from under him and his last breathe is a choked off scream.

 

Tony comes back to awareness later; he’s left his body in working order, but his thoughts float uselessly. Natasha still has her head on straight - enough to get them all out of there and put Peter into basic first aid care while they wait to get Helen on scene. 

“Tony.” Rhodey sits next to him while they wait. There’s not much any of them are equipped to deal with right now. “I know it looks bad. But you found him. He’s alive.”

Tony just stares at him dumbly.

Helen confirms the extent of the damage - all the minute details that Tony memorizes. She also says exactly what he is thinking - that his healing factor saved him, but it also prolonged months of agony. He should have died long ago. For all intent and purposes now, said healing factor isn’t strong enough to do anything but delay decay.

Rhodey calls the kid’s aunt; they’ll have to wait to transport him back to New York, and there’s no way to know how long it’ll take. A few days go by, and Peter doesn’t regain consciousness. When he does, the kid simply slips from asleep to awake silently. 

Tony’s not sure what he expected - screaming, maybe? The blinking comatose is worse. Peter is conscious and alert, but not moving or speaking. He can’t really much, but all he does is stare straight up at the ceiling, or straight ahead at the wall - wherever he’s pointed. He won’t squeeze a hand or wiggle his toes - he won’t exactly track a penlight either, although he reacts to it. They know he’s conscious, he’s just not there yet.

“You need to pull yourself together. For his sake.” Everyone tells him this, but today it’s Natasha’s turn to pester him. “Peter won’t recover if you can’t even look him in the eyes. He needs to be brought back into normalcy, gently. He’s had a mental break and needs consistency. If you can’t be here, you can’t be here, Tony.”

So he snaps it back on - the charm, the nonstop talking. He keeps up a one-sided banter at the kid’s side while the kid slowly blinks away one day at a time.

After nine days they start thinking about flying him back to the compound. They’ve fed him enough nutrients through the G-tube that his skin is starting to turn pink again. They keep him wrapped up like a mummy most of the time, and they only change the wrappings when they put Peter out under sedation so he can’t see, but Helen says there is definite progress.

All Tony can do is stare at the kid’s left hand where he’s now missing two fingers. It’s a giant swath of white bandaging - it almost looks like a spider webbed it up, he thinks wryly. 

Once they’ve got wheels up in the air, Helen corners him separately. “Peter’s body is on track to heal -”

Tony shorts at that; Helen ignores him.

“He’ll need physical therapy and pain medication for quite some time yet, but he’ll recover enough.”

“What’s enough?”

She ignores that too. “What we need to start shifting some focus into is his mental recovery. We’re all deeply alarmed that he hasn’t spoken a word yet -”

“How could he?” Even the kids vocal cords had been damaged, the tip of his tongue bitten off. 

“I expected him to at least try by now, Tony. We need him to try.”

“Maybe his aunt will motivate him.”

“Maybe.” She sighs. “You know the symptoms of PTSD. I know you remember what it was like when you got back.”

“Don’t.” Tony gasps, clutching at his chest where the reactor sits. “It’s not even the same. They didn’t string me apart like holiday lights.”

“You woke up with a hole in your chest the size of a fist, Tony. This isn’t a competition of trauma, but you’re going to be an irreplaceable resource for his recovery.”

Tony does what he can; he can hardly stand to look at Peter now, but he knows he has to. The kid spends two more weeks at the compound with everyone before they start leaving the wrappings off for his skin to regrow. His damaged tongue regrows too. He can talk, but he doesn’t much.

Tony makes himself look at the kid because he knows Peter can’t look at himself in a mirror; he looks radically altered, although the question of how much the healing factor will kick in still hovers over all of them.

“Obviously I can’t make any promises, but it’s possible that with time, he physically will look much the same as before,” Helen tells a tearful May.

“How is that possible?” She asks. They’re well away from Peter’s room so they won’t be overheard.

“His healing factor was charted past Steve Roger’s - we know that it would take an extended period of the same trauma over and over again to leave a scar on Rogers, and while that is the case for Peter, it’s possible that the scarring might be limited. I just don’t know. We have to see.”

Overall, Helen tells them that Peter’s physical recovery is a success. The kid is up on his feet a little now - he shuffles around stiffly, although Tony wonders if he would be more mobile by now if everyone wasn’t so afraid of pushing him. 

He talks a little too. He’s not the same motormouth Pete, but he answers questions when spoken to. 

May wants to take him home to Queens; she thinks it will help with the emotional damage to be around his friends and in his own space. Helen Cho agrees, as long as she continues to see him regularly in the city. 

Tony doesn’t know what to think. He sits with the kid most waking hours still, like a permanent piece of furniture. Peter doesn’t react to him much - he doesn’t really react to anyone, although Tony can tell he tries around May. Maybe it is best for him to leave with her, but Tony sees the glossy look in his eyes. The not-quite-thereness of it. 

They pack a bag of medication for him and May makes her rounds of thanking everyone. Tony stays by Peter’s side as they wait for Happy to bring around the car to take them both home. Peter sways on his feet slightly - Tony doesn’t know if he’s uncomfortable or trying to ground himself.

Peter almost looks like the old Peter. His hair is neatly trimmed and fluffy again, he’s got fingernails on all remaining fingers, and with his regular street clothes of jeans and a long sleeve tee the scars that look like faint pink stretch marks are hidden. Tony’s starting to believe Cho that the scars will eventually fade completely. 

And yet, Peter looks radically different. His posture is different. His face is the same, but different. Devoid. He often stares out, mouth slightly agape, eyes unfocused. Peter might have been a small kid for his age before, but now he’s positively diminutive. 

“I bet you can’t wait to get one of those sandwiches,” Tony rambles. “You know, the ones from the place that guarantees cat hair included, free of charge?”

Peter doesn’t react to anything he’s saying - he’s looking off at the horizon. He blinks, squints his eyes. Behind them, he can hear May approaching. The kid pivots to square off towards Tony so suddenly it startles him.

His neck is slung forward, so he has to peer up at Tony despite not being that much shorter than him. There’s an emotion on his face - it’s not much, but so much more than has been. He looks confused, maybe? 

“M’sr Stark?” Even though he’s recovered enough to talk ‘normally,’ when he does speak it’s often at volumes too low to easily catch and in a garbled mess.

“Yeah kid?” Tony keeps his voice soft and low, but clear. He takes Peter’s hands in his; on his left hand, the fingers are ever so slowly, but surely, also growing back. Tony couldn’t believe it at first, but Helen says there’s nothing she won’t believe anymore. 

“M’sr St-st…” He stutters, looking around as if he has no idea where he is. Maybe he doesn’t.

Tony doesn’t think he’ll ever recover from the sight of Peter when they first found him, but now he wonders if this version is worse. This slow and confused Peter, too scared to move a step without someone telling him first. The way he hangs off himself - flesh on loose bones, almost - is a haunting image all of itself. 

May and Pepper catch up to them. “You ready, baby?” She, ever so gently, tucks Peter to her side as Happy opens the back door for them. 

Tony waits until Peter is situated in his seat before he starts to loose it. “Are you sure you have everything you need?” He asks May, “Because you know you could stay here. Hell, live here permanently. Helen will stay longer too, if he needs, because I know he -”

“Tony.” Pepper puts a hand on his arm. 

May just smiles at him. “I have no one to thank more than you, Mr. Stark.”

And then they just leave. 

May texts him when they get home and settled in. Tony replies with a forwarded message from Helen with his timetable for meds. He knows she already has is, but he doesn’t know what else to say. 

His kid is gone forever. He’s not ever coming back, the Peter he knew. 

This Peter ends up in his custody again far sooner than any of them could have anticipated. 

It’s maybe five hours after Peter’s been home when Tony sees an incoming call from May on the corner of his hologram he’s working on. Frowning, he accepts the call but doesn’t have time to say anything.

There’s screaming - it’s distinctively May screaming. A loud crashing noise close by the phone. 

Tony has his suit on and is out the door without disconnecting the call. “May? Can you hear me?” He doesn’t think she has the phone in her hand anymore, not by the way the sounds are moving away from the speaker. He doesn’t know which races faster - his mind or his heart - because he knows that somehow they’ve missed a thread and those people are about to rip his kid away from him again, and this time May will be a casualty. 

“May? Peter?”

The screaming continues. She’s hysterical - screaming stop, please, no. Then he catches it - “Peter, no!”

The commotion on the other side of the line raises to a volume that Tony can barely stand, then it cuts out. 

“FRIDAY? You got anything for me?”

“Neighbors have called 911 and police are on their way to the Parker residence now.”

“I need you to dispatch them somewhere else.”

“Yes, boss.”

As he approaches, Tony can see that one of the windows to the Parker’s apartment is shattered, and there’s blood dripping down some of the shards left in the sill. When he enters, it’s quiet.

“Peter? May?” Tony calls, and he’s afraid, thinking of what he’s about to find. In the distance, he can hear the police car sirens. 

It’s May’s room he’s come in through with the shattered window; it looks like a botched robbery. The dresser is turned over on its side, its contents spilling out, and the comforter on the bed has been pulled off to one side. There’s more blood smeared along one wall, and scattered debris all over the place.

“Pete? May?” There’s not a single peep in the place. “What am I looking at, FRIDAY?”

“There is only one heat signature left in the apartment.”

Almost as soon as the AI says it, a floor creaks, then a small door to an ensuite bathroom opens. May is on the floor, crying. 

“Jesus, May, what happened? Where’s the threat?”

May sobs, falling forward on her knees. She’s cradling her very visibly broken arm. “He’s gone!”

Tony’s blood runs cold. He knows, but he asks: “Who’s gone?” 

“Peter. He’s gone.” May stumbles onto her feet, running to clutch Tony’s arm through the armor with her good hand. Her face is bloody on one side, but her hair sticks to the gash on her cheek. “You have to find him, he’s out there crawling around without the suit on!”

“I’ll get him.” Tony’s out the window before he can even ask any details - he wonders if the kid has his old webshooters or not, because if not he can’t have gotten too far in the limited time between Tony picking up the call and getting there.

“FRIDAY, I need you to inform Pepper that she might need to put out some fires if anyone manages to grab a picture of Peter.” Tony isn’t sure if it’s even possible to shut this down if it gets out - FRIDAY is scanning any social media or news outlet for sightings of a kid crawling on the walls, but nothing seems to have leaked yet. 

Sure enough, Peter didn’t get too far, although he clearly didn’t try to go too far either. He’s standing on the roof of a building within a mile radius, and for all intent and purposes, doesn’t seem to be doing anything. 

Frozen. Bloody arms slack. Hunched up all wrong like a wrung out doll. When Tony lands on the roof, he makes sure to keep a distance and his hands up, talking softly. 

“Hey Petey Pie. You know you can’t be out here doing crazy acrobats without a mask on. Let’s get you out of here, okay?” He keeps his approach steady and slow. “You gave May a scare; hell, you scared the shit out of me, too. I know you didn’t mean to, bud, but we’ve got to get you home.”

Peter continues to stare off in the distance at nothing. His mouth slack, eyes foggy. It’s the same look that Peter has most of the time; there are moments of clarity, when he almost looks like his old self, but this is the norm. He comes out of it, usually does very little, then sinks back in. This time, it looks like May was on the receiving end of a bad spell when he came out of it.

“Hey kid.” Tony is close enough to touch him now, but he doesn’t. “You’re bleeding. Going through a window will do that. That’s why they’re made to open, you know.”

Still nothing. Tony steps fully into Peter’s field of view so all the kid can see is his chest plate, but he doesn’t even blink.

“Peter, I’m going to pick you up now, okay? We’ll get you home and fix you up.”

Once they’re settled back into the apartment, Pepper and Rhodey join them. Pepper comforts May as best as possible, and while Peter’s wounds are superficial enough that Rhodey can tend to them, May’s are not. Tony thought that she’d need to be pried off of her nephew, but she goes to the ER after a gentle prodding.

The look in her eyes is something else entirely; different then when they first found him even, and she had to see her kid flayed open. It’s fear. 

“Tony.” Rhodey corners him outside of Peter’s room. Tony is sure the kid can hear them both, but whether or not he’s listening, who’s to say. “He attacked his aunt. The only person in the world he has left. It’s… Not good. It’s really not good.”

Tony grimaces; the way he’s talking about Peter, it sounds like a dog got loose. A dog who needs to be put down. “Except she’s not all he has; Peter has me.”

Rhodey just nods tiredly. “He can’t stay here. It was a mistake to think he could.”

They sort it out with May once her arm is in a cast. Peter will move indefinitely to the compound; May will be there when she can and potentially move there as well in time, if need be. “This is still the beginning of his recovery,” Pepper assures her. “We don’t know where he’ll be in another six months; he might be more stable then.”

Before they leave again, Peter comes around enough that he is clearly stricken with guilt. He apologizes profusely to his aunt, stumbling over all his words in his haste, and for a moment Tony can close his eyes and think it’s the old Peter, running his mouth. When he opens his eyes, he sees the raised and rough texture of Peter’s throat. Smoother than it was even a week ago.

He cries in the car on the way back. It’s the first time Peter’s cried since they found him. Even his tears are silent. Steady, but he doesn’t react other than the water pouring out of his eyes. Tony pulls over in Pepper’s car, has her take the wheel so he can crawl in the back and wrap the kid up in his arms. He kisses the top of Peter’s head, sticks his nose there so it’s all he can see - the same, unfazed curls Peter has always had. 

Peter turns off before they get back. Pepper helps him settle in, Tony and Rhodey both staying on the other side of the kid. Once he’s resting in his bed, Tony steers her away. 

“You’re staying in the city too,” he tells her. “I can’t have you here.”

“Tony Stark. Are you implying I can’t defend myself against a sixteen-year-old child?”

“Pep, you’re the most capable person I know, but I think it may be for the best that we limit the faces around him for awhile.”

Pepper frowns. “I’m not so sure. Tony. You can’t be his next captor. He has to be exposed to the rest of the world, or else he might think - think he’s still there, I don’t know.”

She has a point. But Tony isn’t taking chances. Her life is in the city anyway, and he’s got Rhodey and Happy staying for now, and Natasha is still somewhat around. Tony tells her that she should come down with May in a couple of days. May needs company too.

“How’s she doing?” he asks Pepper later the next week.

She sighs. “She’s shaken up.” She’s been nothing but shaken up for years, Tony thinks, but keeps that to himself. “I think she’s more shaken up than she’ll ever admit, even to herself. She wanted to come down a couple of days ago, but I convinced her to hold off until the weekend. I think it might be best, but I don’t know.”

The team at the compound clears a couple more doctors, people Helen trusts, to come and interact with Peter, but they’re given confusing and often conflicting advice on what’s best for him. Give him space, but not too much space. Make sure there’s always someone around, but don’t let him know it. Let him make his own decisions, but make sure he sticks to his schedule for meds, therapy, and group activities. 

Tony helps with his physical therapy, and Rhoday often goes through his own side-by-side with the kid. Peter is past the point of needing help to walk or run - it’s more motivation to build the muscle back up. They play basketball for his hand-eye coordination and jog laps around the track. Some days Peter engages easily, but others they have to literally drag him out of his room.

They switch tactics and try to let Peter tell them when he’s ready to eat or work out, but that quickly spirals into not eating or working out or showering or sleeping. Even when he’s lucid, Peter doesn’t seem to want to do much. Tony takes him to the labs with him to show him different things that might pique his interest, and like anything else it sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, but mostly Peter is content to watch. 

They carefully hover around the issue of Spiderman - Peter hasn’t brought it up, and no one has the courage to either. Tony went from thinking the kid probably couldn’t and shouldn’t ever be Spiderman again to seeing the kid literally grow his fingers back and thinking, well, maybe. 

Now he doesn’t know. His physical transformation is almost complete, but his mental one. Well. They don’t know. 

Peter solves equations drawn out on Tony’s board. They’re meant for Bruce, but Peter goes from staring into space to writing furiously on the board with new and horrifically digraphic writing. Tony runs the numbers, and they check out. Peter slowly works his way through a novel that he should be reading in school - Tony reads along with him so that he can discuss it with him, even. 

Things work. Peter works. 

Just not all of the time. 

The duration of his comatose spells can vary, but they usually don’t last more than twelve hours. They hit a spell that lasts for over forty-eight hours though, and nothing pulls him out of it. Everyone adjusts - everyone adores Peter, and they all have unending patience, but they all knew it wouldn’t be easy.

Peter goes from his own physical therapy to assisting Rhodey with his; he helps him stretch and maneuver his legs. The kid loves Natasha, loves to tease her by crawling all over the walls trying to sneak up on her. Out of all of them, Peter seems to eat best with Happy; Tony jokes that it’s the patented scowl on his face that Peter responds to. 

Peter doesn’t engage with May the same way for awhile; Tony thinks, at one point, that he might be faking an episode when she’s there to avoid the guilt he has, but then Pepper has them both buried in soil the next day gardening, and it seems to help.

“This isn’t the beach, last I checked.” Tony pulls down his sunglasses to see the full splendor of his kid buried under the dirt like he’s buried in sand. May and Pepper giggle while they dig up new flower beds. 

The breeze ruffles Peter’s hair, and Tony can see the moment his eyes change from not-there to there. He too, laughs, and the dirt shakes off of him as he wiggles. Tony sits on his ass in the sun and closes his eyes, spread out next to Peter and blatantly in the way of gardening. 

Pepper braids together a flower crown and has to show Peter how to replicate it neatly; it doesn’t turn out quite the same, and it’s definitely made of weeds, but he places it gently on Tony’s head.

Things are better than worse. Or were they always bad? Peter has moments - he lashes out against Happy and pushes him through a wall; he bites Tony at one point when he’s trying to make sure the kid eats.

In some ways, these are the things Tony expected to happen after rescuing the kid; he was physically tortured for months, and it makes sense to him that the kid would lash out violently.

It’s late one night - almost two in the morning - when FRIDAY alerts him that Peter has left his room and is standing just outside the back doors to the garden. When Tony reaches him, he thinks Peter might be having an episode again. His eyes are glazed and his lips bitten open, staring out into the newly blossoming flowers.

“Mr. Stark?” He says softly. Not an episode then. “Where are we?”

Tony quickly brushes his hands over Peter, runs his fingers through the kid’s mop. “You’re in New York, Peter. You’re okay. It’s Tuesday, May 17th. Your aunt is in the city. You’re staying here with me for now. In the morning, we’re going to eat some oatmeal before we go to PT. Helen’s coming by later.”

Tony prattles on - watching Peter’s face carefully. They do this often, but every time it’s hard to know what helps and what doesn’t. Peter hasn’t swung at him yet, so the touch is doing its job of grounding, hopefully. 

“You’re not real,” Peter whispers, so quietly, so gently, so wholly and so poorly.

“I am very much real, I assure you, as are you.”

Peter looks down at his hands. The two regenerated fingers aren’t the same color as the others - they stick out, even at just a glance. “I wasn’t always like this.”

“No, you weren’t, but you work all the same.” Tony folds the kid into his arms, slowly, so he can break away if he needs. Peter lets himself be held - he’ll let Tony hold him in an infant’s cradle on the couch, sometimes. He’d never in front of anyone else, but sometimes when the episodes are long and deep, Tony has to do something with his hands. 

Tony sleeps in the kid’s room with him that night, because Peter remains very lucid and very confused. In fact, that night seems to be a turning point in which the episodes are fewer and far between; they mistakenly think it’s a good sign.


	2. Chapter 2

They have a small party for Peter to celebrate his birthday in which they invite his friends and some other scattered team members. Thor shows up, much to both May and Peter’s blushing delight, but when the kid’s friends from school show their faces, it quickly becomes a shit show.

“Do you know what’s going on over there?” Pepper asks, glued to Tony’s side since it’s been several weeks apart for her to travel. When Tony glances over at Peter, he doesn’t look happy, and neither do his friends. 

“It’s the first time they’ve seen each other face-to-face in a year,” he says. They’d tried video chatting with his friends in months past as part of his recovery, although it hadn’t gone well. “Let’s give them space but keep an eye.”

Said space doesn’t last long - one minute Tony is helping Pepper pull out the desert options for the table, the next there is a short yelp and a scramble of feet squeaking across the tiled floor.

Happy is there first - he’s been sticking close to Peter all day. The kid is hunched up on the floor next to MJ’s feet and Ned’s kneeling figure. “Back off and give him some room,” Happy says, sweeping an arm across Ned’s chest. 

“I didn’t do anything, I swear. I didn’t even touch him,” Ned says, and there are plenty of tears rolling down his face. MJ looks scarily similar to Peter during his deepest episodes.

“We know, sweetie,” May says, clasping Ned to her side. “Let’s step outside for just a second, alright.” She takes MJ by the other hand and leads them away.

They don’t need to see this. 

Peter goes from wiggling on the floor to sudden stillness; at first, they all assume he’s collapsed in on himself again. It’s been a few days since an episode, so he’s due, right? Happy is about to move the kid, probably just put him on the couch, when Peter full on launches himself through the floor-to-ceiling glass window right next to him. 

It shatters, shards flying everywhere, and everyone collectively gasps. It doesn’t slow Peter down at all - he’s flying across the grounds on all fours, then clambering up a tree and swinging from one to another down the compound like he’s got his webshooters on. 

Tony curses in unison with Rhodey as they take off sprinting after them. Tony passes May with the other kids, now both crying openly. “Rhodes, I need you to suit up and plant yourself at the end of the property. I’m going to try and catch him by myself first.”

“The less people to perceive as a threat, the better. Got it.”

In his ear, Happy tells him that he and Nat will get to the other side of the compound border, just in case Peter reroutes. Tony breaks through the line of trees and enters a densely wooded area; the compound sits against the start of a national park, something that has brought a lot of enjoyment to the team. Now, Tony looks up around the trees and hears every creak and crack of branches, seemingly from everywhere, and curses again.

“Pete? Baby? Where’d you do?”

Of course, he’s nowhere even close - he’s already past Tony and at the gates. Rhodey yells in his earpiece, and that’s when Tony engages his own suit and flies to his friend’s position, and not a moment too soon. 

They’re in all out warfare - Rhodey trying to wrestle Peter to the ground and hold him there, while Peter scrambles out from under him. He takes Rhodey’s head between his hands and repeatedly begins smashing the helmet up and down into the gravel with such force that FRIDAY alerts him that the helmet is now disengaged. 

He knows that means damage to Rhodey could now be critical, so he waists no time in deploying a set of sedatives meant to knock out the Hulk. The kid, of course, can hear them coming and manages to dodge two of the three. That third one hits him in the cheek - Tony grimaces when he sees the dart sitting out, but the boy’s legs begin to wobble as soon as he runs for it, and within four yards he bites the dust.

Tony sinks another sedative into the kid’s arm and pulls out the other from his face, then he runs to Rhodey’s side. “Bruce, can you get Peter’s room ready? We need full recovery suite mode lockdown again,” he radios in, then sinks to his friend’s side. 

Rhodey is already sitting up with the helmet off, now in two pieces. He’s breathing heavily, blood gushing out of a wound above his eye and his nose.

“Talk to me.”

“I’m okay,” he says. He looks frightened - Tony knows what he’s thinking: another spinal injury, especially one as high as his neck, would have finished him. 

He has Happy escort Rhodey back while Thor carries Peter to his room, just in case he does manage to wake back up. He sends the kid’s friends home with May, and studiously ignores the streamers and gleaming piles of celebratory food that was supposed to be the only surprise of the day. Tony leaves Bruce with Peter while he sits next to Rhodey as Helen checks him out.

“The friends weren’t a good idea,” he says.

“Clearly.”

“No, I mean that anyone who can’t hold their own against Peter shouldn’t be around him. That includes May.”

Helen pauses, penlight poised in the air, and frowns. She doesn’t agree or disagree, just continues to measure Rhodey’s dilation. Tony fiddles with his watch, linked into Peter’s vitals. “I can’t just lock the kid up here forever.”

Rhodey looks close to tears. He covers Tony’s hands with his own. “You might have to.”

Later, Bruce says something similar. “Peter’s young, and the trauma is still fresh. Who knows where he’ll be in a few years, but… Tony, there’s no guarantee with these things. You know that. If this were another kid, there would be other places we could look into, but with his enhancements and his history…”

“There’s just us.” There’s just me, is what Tony really wants to say. 

Increasingly, Tony realizes he is the father everyone jokes that he is; long before the incident, Clint had teased him and welcomed him to fatherhood. Pepper thought it was sweet, and even May just elbowed him with congratulations. He knew what he was in for, or so he thought. Nothing can prepare someone for the emotional bond of parenthood, but in Tony’s case, he never thought he’d be given someone dependent like Peter now is. 

“How you holding up?” Natasha asks. She’s helped everyone put away all the decor and food and now sits with an open bottle of something in front of her. Tony’s fingers itch to take it from her, but he doesn’t. As soon as he tells himself he can’t, the want disappears almost instantly. 

“I wish people would stop asking me that. I’m sick of everyone acting like Peter is a burden. That’s my fucking kid in there. He’s mine now - my responsibility, and he’s - ” The sob breaks through and scares him. His hand floats midair, mid jab, and he wonders when he started crying. “Fuck.”

Natasha just smiles. “I love Peter too, you know.”

Tony sighs. “I know.”

“Look, you know you won’t be doing this alone, but…” She pauses, measuring her words while she looks at the open wall that Peter broke through. “You gotta be sure, is all. This is a forever thing.”

Tony doesn’t even dignify that with a response. As if he didn’t already know that. As if he ever thought he’d cut ties with a kid he gave a multi-million dollar suit to. It was different then, but not that different.

When Peter comes out from the sedation, it’s right into an episode. It feels very much like the first time he came to be after rescue - his eyes slowly open and adjust, but just wander off. 

“I love you, kid, and I’m so happy you’re here.” Tony needs to remind him, even if Peter can’t hear him in the moment.

Tony keeps Peter in his room for a few days. His cuts and bruises are already gone, and it seems that his healing factor is back to normal speed. Peter doesn’t say anything about the scuffle or his friends. He has recently taken to scratching at himself though - his arms are smooth again, all the raised scaring gone, and it’s like he’s trying to replicate the lines that lingered there for so long. He’ll pick at one spot until there’s a deep groove then slowly try and expand it across his skin. Like drawing a line.

“Stop, Peter.” Tony will gently pull his hand away from his arm. It gets bad enough that Tony makes him wear gloves, similar to the mits they put on babies, so he can’t scratch anymore. They frustrate Peter when he notices, but sometimes he just stares at them much the same as anything else. He’s usually good about leaving them alone once they’re on - they’re a convenient excuse for him not to have to do anything. 

There’s a threat in Wakanda that Tony is asked to help with; Rhodey agrees to stay behind with Peter so Tony can go. He was already apprehensive about it when it came up, but he’s worried about leaving Rhodey behind with Peter after the near head trauma he sustained at the kid’s hands. Rhodey insists they’ll be fine for forty-eight hours. 

Tony feels justified about his concerns when he gets back, because he finds Peter is asleep in his bed with his hands cuffed to the sides of it. 

“What the fuck?” he mumbles under his breath. Before he can go looking for answers, Rhodey materializes even though it’s almost four in the morning.

“He wouldn’t stop hurting himself, even when he’s sleeping.”

“So we’re restraining him every night now?” Tony is furious.

Rhodey just shakes his head, shrugs a little. “He consented to it.”

Tony takes a deep breath in, then leaves before he says anything he’ll regret. He both vehemently believes Peter can consent, but also can’t. 

He’s back in Peter’s room fifteen minutes later, dressed in sweats. He takes the kid’s wrists out and massages them each briefly before picking him up and taking him to his own room and lying him down. The rest of the night, whenever Peter absentmindedly starts to pick, Tony cradles him, arms to the side. Peter remains lax with him. As he brushes out some tangles in the kid’s hair, he realizes that there are fingernail shaped red crescents in his scalp too, wounds that no one would really be able to see unless they were looking for them.

Peter seems to relax a little more the next day with Tony back. They go down to the lab, and Peter watches and asks questions. It’s good. It’s nice. At bedtime, Tony pulls Peter into his room again and watches him toss and turn, redirecting wandering hands when he sees them.

It takes a couple weeks, but Tony breaks Peter of the habit while sleeping, mostly. Enough that Peter goes back to sleeping in his own room and in the morning when Tony checks, things are mostly okay. Peter even puts the gloves on himself one day, along with some noise cancelling headphones, and lies on the floor while Tony works, looking up at him.

“What are you doing down there?” He asks when Peter resumes lying on the floor in the kitchen the next day in much the same way, but without any headphones or gloves. 

“Watching a movie.”

Tony grins. “TV’s that way, bud.”

“Shhhh. It’s my favorite movie,” Peter says toothily. “I miss Mr. Stark.”

Tony sinks. “I’m right here, baby.” He sits on the floor next to the kid and plays with his hair. 

Peter’s eyes fill with water. “One day, he’ll come and get me.” His fingers move to his face and even though his fingernails are blunt, he manages to get some scratches under his eye before Tony can stop him. 

“The truth is, I never know which Peter I’ll get,” Tony tells May on the phone. She asked how he’s doing - it’s been awhile since she’s seen her nephew in person, although they can’t actually keep her away. When she does visit, they make sure to have backup, just in case. “Some days, it’s almost like he’s the same kid I met. Last week, he rebuilt the engine for one of my old cars for fun.”

He leaves out the part where when the kid finished working, he stared at himself in the reflection of a part of said engine, then bashed his head into it and destroyed it. There was an almost perfect line in the center of his forehead that gushed out enough blood that Tony slipped and fell in it.

“The next day, he quietly cried all day. He still thinks he’s hallucinating, that he was never really rescued.”

“Tony.” He can tell she’s crying on the other end. He braces himself, but all she says is: “Thank you so much. He’s so lucky to have you.”

He doesn’t say anything; he thinks about how long it took him to find Peter, how it wasn’t even his own intel that did it, it was Natasha’s. 

“Hey Pete, wanna talk to May?” It’s a been a good day so he risks the ask, and Peter nods. 

Through everything, Tony never doubts his love for Peter and the depths to which he will go. He holds onto the days when Peter jumps on his back and demands a piggyback ride up to dinner, or the afternoon they surprised Bruce with his favorite recipe before they all went for a hike. Peter gains a dozen new freckles across his cheeks, and although they won’t last either, it’s almost as if Tony can forget about the scars that used to be there.

Something triggers a particularly bad week though; it’s been a year since his actual rescue and a year and a half since he was taken, but Tony doesn’t think Peter’s actually aware of the date, or even if he is, that he believes it. He gets a kid who won’t move at all - Peter just lies like a marionette puppet cut from his strings on the floor, and Tony has to maneuver him to eat and sleep and bathe, just like he used to all the time. 

Peter whispers the same mantra over and over again - it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real. When Tony manages to spoon feed him something, the kid can’t keep it down.

“They poisoned whatever food they gave him,” Bruce reminds him. Or did he ever tell Tony that? There was so much at the beginning that he suspects Bruce tried to soften the blow by not reporting everything. “They really wanted to see how far the serum would go to keep him alive, so they either poisoned him or starved him, usually.”

Tony makes sure to prepare everything in front of the propped up kid, but it doesn’t help. Peter’s diet is still fairly limited - at first out of necessity, but more so now because Peter is a picky eater. He won’t eat any meat any more.

“I’m the meat,” he says once, under his breath in a garbled voice. “I’m the meat.”

“Kid. Peter.” Tony presses his face into Peter’s line of vision. “You’re not meat. You’re not - Christ, come here.”

He ends up with his arms full of a seventeen-year-old clinging to his front the same way a four-year-old might. He wonders if one of his captors called him a slab of meat, or whether Peter once looked at his reflection while he was still in the early stages of healing and called himself that. Either way, he doesn’t like to eat meat or anything red any more. 

Since Bruce is also a vegetarian, the smell of a cheeseburger startles him one day. Happy’s brought Pepper in for the night, and she hangs the bag off her finger with a smile.

He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he throws it up later.

Peter makes himself scarce while she visits - Tony worriedly wrings his hand around the watch that’s linked to Peter and finds it hard to enjoy her company while the kid is elsewhere on his own. Well, not on his own. He’s out with Bruce in the woods, looking at different vegetation, or something like that. He knows Bruce has the sedatives on him if he needs, but Peter hasn’t pulled any running stunts in awhile. 

“He really didn’t need to flee the premises,” Pepper says. “I would love to see him.”

“I told him that.”

“Does it make him feel better?”

Tony shrugs. “He worries.” 

“Do you think he’s getting better?”

What a loaded question. He talks to Pepper almost daily on the phone, and a lot of what they talk about is Peter. Pepper reads the updates from Helen herself even - she’s as up-to-date as any of them. “You just - you see everything. You know him better than anyone now. I want to know if you think he’s better.”

Tony feels unjustly irate with her. “I can’t answer that.” He knows a moment will come - maybe it’s already passed - when their relationship will devolve into something else. He doesn’t think Pepper will verbally ask him to choose between their future and Peter’s, because she probably already knows the answer. 

As she’s leaving, Bruce emerges from the trees with Peter hoisted on his back, and the kid is actually smiling. It’s sunny out - a beautiful day. Tony wonders if Pepper will see them as they pull around the drive and think - yes, Peter’s going to be okay.

As soon as Peter is on his own two feet again, his face morphs into something unpleasant and frightened. Tony immediately pulls him into his side - if he’s constantly in someone’s arms, he has to believe, right? He has to know he made it out, and he has to believe it.

Peter pulls apart his room. He pulls the floorboards away. He takes apart the bed and stashes things as weapons. He rips up the clothes from his back one night and has tourniquets tied around otherwise fine skin, although now they are purple and white around the places he’s tied. He goes through phases with the skin picking - it’s better right now, but he’s replaced it with pulling out his hair. Tony ends up cutting it as short as possible without giving him a buzzcut, because he doesn’t want Peter to look in the mirror and see a similar reflection to what he saw after rescue - a patchy scalp with hairs of all lengths. 

Tony has Bruce give him the same cut, because well - he hopes it will make Peter smile. He hopes that the kid knows it’s the real Tony Stark, because would Peter ever imagine his mentor with anything less than his usual groomed self?

Peter does seem startled at the cut. He kind of rubs at Tony’s head, then traces the outline of Tony’s facial hair before nodding to himself. Tony leans in, wants to hear if he says it - Peter’s sustained mantra of not real - but he doesn’t hear anything at all. 

“I never thought I’d be the high maintenance one in the group,” Bruce jokes. Tony is immensely grateful for Bruce; he’s become his co-parent more and more in the past year, the past six months in particular. 

When Tony needs a break, Bruce is there. Technically, others could have fulfilled a similar role, but they didn’t. Bruce electively stayed without asking. He knows that Bruce probably identifies with the dual nature of Peter now. It’d be hard not to if he was Bruce. 

“I’m thinking of a change of scenery,” Tony tells him. “How about the three of us pack some bags and take a vacation? I’ll leave Happy with Pepper.”

Bruce quietly speculates the question. “Peter hasn’t left here in so long.” We know how that ended last time, is what he’s thinking.

“Look, we’ll never know if we don’t try, right? We gotta stop treating him like he can’t do anything ever again. He deserves a break. I deserve a break. You deserve a break.”

Truth is, Tony feels like he’s going insane these days. Cooped up is part of it. He’s still working for SI, but he’s hardly Iron Man any more, and he feels hardly like Tony Stark any more. His measure of happiness is recalibrated to Peter’s, so to say he doesn’t have fulfillment is a lie, but he’s got bad days too. 

“You’re not wrong.” Bruce smiles at him. “I trust you’ve got somewhere picked out - it’ll need to be private. Room in case he bolts.” 

“You remember I own an island, right?”

“I didn’t actually know that for sure, but I did assume.”

They both talk Peter through it the next couple of weeks; the kid doesn’t really react to the news that they’re going to the beach. They don’t know what he’ll do in a new place - it could be great for him, Tony knows. A tropical location is about as far from the shithole they found him in as possible, but they don’t know what changing his routine will really do.

Peter sinks into himself on the plane; it’s been awhile since an episode that lasts longer than maybe an hour. He mostly functions on his own these days, but Tony supposes this will always be a possibility now. They have to get him off the jet while he’s still stiffed up - they can maneuver him, but when he’s in an episode his body locks up so it’s hard to move him.

They make it to the house on the island and get him settled on a couch that overlooks the ocean while Bruce wrangles the bags. Tony’s already planning on having Peter stay with him for at least a night in one room, and Bruce will be right next to them. 

Tony sits on the couch next to his kid and watches the sun set. The air is salty, heavy. He knows Peter can probably feel it on his lashes, his tongue. He rubs the back of Peter’s neck under the collar of his shirt hoping he’ll come out of it. He hasn’t ate at all all day, and there’s all kinds of delicious fruit in season that he knows Peter will enjoy. 

“Come back to me, kid,” he whispers.

Peter comes to once he’s tucked into bed with the lights off; this is more familiar, he guesses. He makes distressed whimpering noises, sliding out of the bed onto the floor with a thud. Bruce is there in the doorframe immediately, but Tony just holds up his hand. They hover a few feet from Peter while he pants, his heart racing. The watch on Tony’s wrist beeps because it’s been elevated for too long. 

“Peter, do you remember the project we started last week?” Bruce says quietly, calmly. “I’ve packed up some for us to work on in the morning. The same thing we’ve been talking about.”

Good old Bruce. Bringing familiar things for Peter to occupy himself with. Let it be known that Tony has always appreciated his friend’s genius. 

They don’t remind him that he isn’t home, but Peter clearly is looking around at the corners of the room from his hunched up form. He’s afraid to move, clearly, well aware he’s not where he normally is. Tony starts to panic, just a little. 

“You wanna go outside, Petey Pie?”

“Tony, I don’t know - ”

“It’s gorgeous out. We can listen to the waves. We won’t even need a sound machine. You’ll love it.”

Peter begins crawling towards the door, making a wide berth about the two men. Tony can hear him mumbling out, out, out under his breath. He’ll do anything to be out of the room. 

Tony and Bruce exchange a look. A bolt may happen, but Tony’s willing to risk it to break the spell. They both stick close to Peter as he scampers up the walls and ceiling, stopping short of the sliding glass doors to the ocean. 

All Tony can see is the scattered window at May’s and the shattered window at the compound. He tenses, but Peter remains. 

The ocean seems to hypnotize him. He’s still, like he’s sunken down again, but Tony can tell it’s not an episode. Quietly, he moves under the kid and slides the door open, despite Bruce shaking his head. 

“Come here, underoos.” Tony opens his arms - the ceiling isn’t that high, so the kid’s back isn’t far from his grasp. “Let go, I’ll catch you.”

Amazingly, he does. Tony huffs out a huge breath when the weight hits him. Bruce voices a warning, but Tony’s already out the door, Peter in his arms. 

It’s still hot out, despite the sun having long past set. The moon is full enough that nothing seems that dark out either, and the waves aren’t far from their backdoor. Tony walks them through the sand that shifts beneath his bare feet until they hit the spot were the waves barely tickle them. Gently, Tony puts the kid down so he can feel how very real the ocean is, but he doesn’t let go.

In his arms, Peter trembles: a soft thing that grows and grows. Shaking apart in his arms, and it feels like a bomb. His glossy eyes shine just as bright as the water before them, and he can’t blink or move.

“What do you think, Petey Pie?” 

Behind them, Bruce lingers close-by. He’s got his hands stuck in the pockets of his pants - the same pants and top he wore on the flight. Tony wonders if he even planned on sleeping tonight, or if the scientist knew. 

They’ve come so far, but this is the greatest distance they’ve traveled since, and it feels like a physical weight sitting on his shoulders. Peter’s legs give out, and he dangles in Tony’s hold. There are great big sobs coming out of his throat, the likes of which Tony has never heard from Peter, or from any other person. 

Bruce wanders up closer to the two of them, crouches in the soft waves breaking over their toes and tugs Peter from his grasp into the wet sand. He lets the kid sit there, fingers furled up in the grittiness of the beach, no one else touching him, and weep. 

“Do you think he knows now?” Tony asks Bruce when he straightens up next to him. 

“What? That it’s real?”

Tony nods. 

Peter sinks forward on his knees so that his forehead lingers just inches from the water and his regrown curls dampen. He sweeps up huge piles of the sand in his arms, then pulls it to his chest as if in a hug. The sobs are so large that his body heaves, and Tony knows that he is probably inhaling sand. 

Bruce never answers. That’s just as well.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: This chapter contains self-mutilation and serious depictions of the aftermath of torture. There is a lot of depression and anxiety related to these themes. References to suicide as well. Please read carefully if these themes may upset you.

The island life seems to suit Peter at first; he lies out in the sun and seems content no matter how pink he gets, which makes Tony worried he’s burning himself on purpose, but Bruce kind of shrugs it off. “It’s not the worst thing he could do.”

And it’s true, that something as minor as a sunburn is always gone the next morning. Tony hovers with the sunblock all the same, but tries not to let the kid get the sense that he’s accusing him of anything. 

They build sand castles - one that is the complex layout of the compound - then Peter builds a structure similar but not. It’s extremely detailed for the span of several rooms, then it dwindles off.

“You have to finish it,” Peter tells Tony.

“You tired, bud?”

Peter shrugs. “I don’t know the rest of the layout. I never made it past these rooms.”

It’s the goddamn fort they found Peter in; Tony can’t even help himself. He jumps to his feet, sand flying, and kicks the entire thing right over. Peter makes a noise of protest - over the sand in his face or the destruction of his work, he’s unsure.

He can feel himself turning red, his breath coming in shorter bursts. Behind them, Bruce makes a calming noise, for him or Peter? 

Tony stalks off into the water to cool off. He watches Bruce and Peter on the shore, but he can’t hear what they’re saying, and later, when he emerges from the ocean, he wonders if the trip is ruined now for him. Peter is lying buried in the sand this time, and all he can see is Peter stretched out and locked into place on a medical table. He can’t let go of this new memory where Peter innocently constructs a 3D model of his hell, and even though they all live with it daily, Tony knows there is no escape, even on vacation.

He goes into the house and hides. 

He doesn’t want to ruin this for Peter or Bruce. He did this for them. He can keep his shit together for them. He can.

Things get slightly better at dinner that night. Bruce attempts to make them something “appropriately island-themed” and they end up with something they can’t eat, much to Tony’s amusement. Peter had nervously been watching - they don’t deviate much from his regular menu because of how picky he can be, but they end up with a coconut infused rice that was salvable from the entree which he seems okay with.

Peter’s quiet all night long. It’s obviously not unusual for the kid, so Tony doesn’t think much of it. He’s mentally trying to psyche himself back up for the next day, or else maybe he would have seen some other clue to warn him. The kid goes to bed, sharing a space with Tony for his own comfort, without too much trepidation, as far as Tony can tell. 

It’s early morning - maybe four - when FRIDAY blasts an alarm through the house. Tony falls out of the bed feeling shockingly alert if not uncoordinated, and he knows immediately Peter isn’t in the room with him before opening his eyes. 

Bruce is right along aside him when they break out of their bedrooms and run through the small house. It’s not hard to see why FRIDAY woke them up, but the question is why didn’t the AI wake them sooner.

Peter’s in the kitchen. He’s on the floor, his back to the other two men. They can’t see his face, they can’t see what’s happened exactly, but they can see the blood - all over the kitchen floor. 

They both freeze momentarily - Bruce reaches over and grabs Tony’s wrist. They share a glance, a moment, then Bruce slowly backs away, melting into the darkness of a corner to observe so it’s just one of them approaching. Slowly, Tony inches slower. 

“Petey?”

As he comes around the boy’s side, he sees the knife. It’s not a sharp knife - they don’t keep things like that out, but a knife is a knife when you need it to be, and this butter knife was enough. 

Tony gags when he sees them on the floor; he has to turn away, wants to run from the room but can’t. Bruce is quietly watching, and Tony thinks about tapping him in to deal with his one - he’ll have to shortly for the medicinal purposes. 

Tony keeps his nose and mouth covered when he faces Peter again. He crouches down in front of him, tries to see where Peter’s at in his head, but he can immediately tell the kid is in the full throws of a classic episode. 

He quickly motions Bruce over. 

“Jesus Christ, Bruce - what do we do? Do I need to put them on ice? We’re nowhere near a fucking hospital, and he’s bleeding everywhere - ”

“Tony.” Bruce’s voice sounds low and controlled, but there is a waver. A glimmer of that emotion he has to stamp down every day. “Tony, they healed once before, remember?”

The two fingers from Peter’s left hand are missing once more. The same two that were missing when they found him. There is so much blood on the floor that they’ve literally floated a foot away, but they’re still close to the knife. 

“I want you to pack a bag of ice for his hand, okay?” Bruce is already wrapping Peter’s hand with a dish towel for the moment while Tony sits there, useless. 

Between the two of them, they lift Peter up and carry him into the nearest bathroom and place him in the tub. Bruce gets out his leather medicine bag, full of all sorts of things, and begins disinfecting the stumps on Peter’s hand. 

He never winces or comes out of it, not even as they wrap the fingers tightly. Tony sits in the tub with Peter, holding the ice to the fingers through a fresh towel while Bruce excuses himself. They both feel decidedly tongue tied and stupid. Tony feels stupid because he knows they never should have come here now, and there are no words to make up for what just happened. 

They’ve been in the tub for awhile; they’re not sure when he’ll come out of the episode, but he’s subdued enough that Tony decides to actually run him a bath and get the blood off of him. The blood is everywhere, as if the kid was painting with it, although the way it’s streaked over one side of his face makes Tony think that the initial wound sprayed out that way. 

Bruce has the job of holding the bandaged hand in his so it never slips into the water, and Tony delicately rinses him off. They carry him to bed and lie on both sides of him. 

“Maybe we should leave now. Maybe then the next time he’s fully alert, we’ll be home,” Tony says. He feels oddly scared of touching Peter now that he’s cleaned up. He can’t stop looking at the hand, thinking of the fingers that they put in a ziplock baggie like fucking leftovers. 

He makes Bruce carry Peter by himself onto the jet. 

They don’t make it all the way back to the compound before Peter blinks and comes to, but they’re close. He seems confused, looking at the huge white mitt on his hand. He taps at the window with it. “Meat.”

Tony gags, ends up throwing up for real this time in the small comfort of the lavatory. Tony knows - he knows that Peter removed those fingers in a desperate plea to make sense of the things in his head. He didn’t have the fingers for so long, and then he had them again. Now they’re gone once more, and he wonders if that makes more sense in the kid’s head. 

They land. Bruce leads Peter by the hand into the boy’s room. “I got him for the night, Tony. Get some rest.”

He goes to bed and dreams of loose fingers rolling around like screws on the floor of his lab. He wakes up in a cold sweat, vomits once more, then makes himself an espresso. When Bruce and Peter emerge later the next morning, the kid looks almost normal, all traces of sunburn gone. 

There’s just the hand. 

It’s weird to think how quickly they go back to normal. The normal they set before the island, anyway. They stick close to the kid’s side, they re-evaluate anything that could be used to inflict harm, but life goes on. 

Peter does not put up with Tony’s distance - after a week post incident, he flops himself loosely into Tony’s lap, an one-sided grin on his face. Tony runs his fingers through his hair and breathes. He even helps Bruce with the bandages that night, a duty he’d skirted until now. 

They explain what happened to others - May first, then Pepper and Happy. May stays with them for an extended period of time, and Peter helps her in the garden, although they have to rubber band a plastic bag around his hand to keep dirt out of the wrappings.

The fingers grow back again. It’s the weirdest thing Tony’s ever seen. Peter is fascinated by it, to the point that Tony can hardly think about anything other than whether or not Peter will do this again. 

They try different conditioning methods to keep Peter grounded. Most days Peter acts like the exercises are silly and insists he knows what’s real, even when it’s clear that he’s a hairpin away from retreat to test out this reality. 

They go without any incident for awhile, but the next bomb isn’t dropped by Peter. 

“We need to talk,” Pepper announces herself as she pushes past Tony into the compound, her heels clicking down the hallways. 

This is it, he thinks. This is when she tells me it’s done and over. Tony knew the day was coming, but every day that she still picked up the phone and he could still hear the smile in her voice was the greatest of comforts. 

“It’s about May.” 

“May?” Tony freezes. “She can’t take him - Jesus, Pepper, look what just happened!” Because his other greatest fear, other from Pepper leaving him, was Peter being taken from him.

“Oh, honey, no.” Pepper takes a deep breath; she looks utterly distressed. Tony sweeps her into his arms, just like he would Peter. “May’s understood for awhile now that most likely Peter will never live with her again.”

Ah, Tony thinks. She’s ready to move in; his mind starts racing, thinking of different precautions he’d need to install for her. Would Pepper move back in too if he did find bullet proof methods of keeping them all safe? 

“Tony, honey, just stop.” Pepper puts a hand against his cheek. “I can see the gears on full speed. I need you to stop for a second.”

She takes another deep breath in: “May’s sick - stage four pancreatic cancer. It’s already metastasized and spread, unfortunately.”

Wait. “What?”

“She was diagnosed two months ago.”

“Two months?” She’s kidding him, right? May would have told him.

“I’m telling you now because May is ready to make arrangements. She asked me not to say anything when she first told me, but that was only three weeks ago.”

“Pepper - I can make phone calls, right now, I can get the head of Mayo Clinic on the line -”

“Tony.” Pepper looks at him the way others look at Peter. Like it’s sad and never ending. “She’s not in a good way. She won’t do any more treatment.”

Tony takes a step away from her, then another. “Peter?”

“She wants to come down and tell him this week, then stay for as long as it takes.”

“Until she’s gone, you mean?”

“I think so.”

Tony’s mind is racing - what’s it going to do to the kid to see his aunt wasting away in front of him? It would have been awful before, but now - he can’t predict. Peter is already wasting away in some aspects - he doesn’t want to tip the scales any further. 

“Tony.” Pepper tugs at his sleeve. He looks up at her and wonders if she even recognizes him anymore. “She wants to legally put Peter in your charge.”

“Of course.” There wasn’t a question, was there? Peter hasn’t been away from his side for more than forty-eight hours in the past three years. Peter was his as much as he was Peter’s.

“He’s legally an adult, but he’s never been medically released as someone who needs to have a legal caregiver. There’s a lot of paperwork to do, and no matter how we handle it, there’s a high possibility it might leak.”

“I understand.” Whatever it takes, he thinks. 

Pepper just smiles at him, albeit sadly. “I know you do.” She takes a deep breath and holds it; now, she’ll tell him they’re done. “I’m staying with May for a couple of nights to help her finish tidying her physical affairs. I’ll let you know when we’re on the way up here.”

Tony tells Bruce; he grimaces: “Jesus. Peter is never going to catch a break, is he?”

“I don’t think this is right for him to watch, but I also know it’s not my choice.”

Bruce sighs. “No. We have no right to deny May Parker this.”

It’s not until May is there, laying on the couch with her nephew’s head in her lap, that Tony closes his eyes and listens to her wheezing breath. In. And out.

In. And out.

Tony cries, and it’s shamefully not even for May Parker. He leaves May and Peter under Natasha’s watch while he retreats into Bruce’s lab. He throws open the door and startles the other man, then paces back and forth. 

“Bruce.”

“Yes, Tony?”

“Bruce.” Tony takes a moment to wipe away the tears. “I’m going to ask you the hardest thing I’ve had to ask anyone.”

Bruce nods, patiently waiting with his hands folded in his lap. Behind him, he has a line of monitors. Some of them are things he’s working on, but the biggest screen tracks Peter at all times. 

“You’ve always looked out for Peter.”

Bruce frowns. “We’ve been over this Tony, I’m staying.”

“No, no, no,” Tony waves his hand. “I know that. Now. The fact is, you and I have been doing this for awhile, and I’ve gone grey and have more wrinkles than my great-aunt now. But you - you haven’t aged, Bruce. And neither has Peter, from what we can tell.”

Tony had never given Bruce’s molecular make-up much thought in terms of aging; obviously, the man was going to outlive them all, maybe outlive even Thor at the rate that their alien friend was going with his crusades. Tony didn’t think much about Bruce’s lack of aging though because who could take better care of themselves? The Hulk had the survival instincts to keep them going. It wasn’t until this past year when it became clear that Peter’s cellular and molecular makeup was similar in terms of the effects of aging that Tony really started to panic.

“Oh, Tony.”

“You know what I have to ask of you.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything, and Tony doesn’t want to speak the words. He doesn’t want to have to ask this man to take care of someone that is Tony’s to take care of. He doesn’t want to burden Bruce, but he also doesn’t want anyone else to have the responsibility. 

It’s this day, watching May Parker slowly saying goodbye to the person that was once hers to care for, that has made Tony confront it. He knows that May must have felt the same way, and yet she overcame to ask him for help when she couldn’t do it. 

Bruce has to be next in line. “If - when, let’s just be overtly clear here - when something happens to me and I go, then I need you to take care of Peter. For as long as he needs you to.”

He’ll always need someone, Tony bitterly thinks, but he also knows that when Peter is ready, he won’t hesitate, and no matter how good Bruce is, he won’t be able to catch everything. Tony suspects, no matter what, Bruce will outlive them all, Peter included.

But first, Peter will outlive him. 

Bruce takes Tony’s hand between his. “You don’t even have to ask,” Bruce tells him.

May’s cognitive abilities sway day-to-day depending on how well she physically feels - which, isn’t great, even on her best days. Pepper brings in the lawyers, and Bruce and Tony carefully agonize over the wording on every single document. It’s not a day long activity - it’s days and days long.

They try and include Peter in the process, letting him read whatever he wants, but he just shakes his head any time a paper comes near him, including when May tries. Everyone is getting testy with each other towards the end of the week, but no one more so than Pepper with Tony.

“You’re basically married to Bruce,” she says with a flat voice. He can tell she’s hurt by some of the things going on in the paperwork - Tony has left almost everything to Bruce. He trusts him with the money, with the patents, with the suits. He’s going to outlive them all, and he knows the Hulk can destroy it all in a moment if needed.

“You know it’s nothing to do with you,” Tony says.

“It hasn’t been for awhile now.” 

When Pepper leaves the compound that day, there’s the unspoken end between them. 

She doesn’t pick up his calls until he leaves a voicemail: “Hey, Pep.” There’s a long shuddering exhale. “May passed. Her public funeral is the ninth. We won’t be there, but we’re having our own goodbyes the day before. You’re welcome at either.”

She turns up the next day, and thank god for that.

The last few days leading up to May’s death had been excruciating for everyone - Peter worst of all, of course. It was clear he longed to stay by May’s side, but found it hard to stay still. Nervous energy precipitated off of him; he paced back and forth in the room, hands scratching at his skin and scalp like he used to daily. If Tony or Bruce tried to stop him or wrap up his hands, he would find some other way to self harm, something potentially worse - such as his head through a mirror - so they decided to leave his hands alone.

The day before she passed, Peter must have known. He went from a moment of calmness to all out hysteria. Before they can subdue him, he’s shattered the bones in one foot and dislocated the opposite arm from his shoulder. Tony thinks back to when Rhodey had him cuffed to his bed at night while he was away and wonders if there will need to be extraordinary measures for the rest of the day.

Their private remembrance for May happens in the garden that she helped cultivate with Peter several years ago; he still lovingly tends to it, or Bruce does when he can’t, so it makes sense for them to gather there and plant some new flowers for her. Peter snaps in and out of focus, like he’s having mini-episodes, but the day goes surprisingly smooth otherwise. 

Pepper goes to the formal funeral in the city with Happy and Bruce. The plan is to keep Peter busy by having him help Tony cook a light dinner for them and have it ready by the time they’re back, but Tony doesn’t push it. Peter wants to sit outside in the garden instead, and what can he say to that on a day like today?

“I know this is real,” Peter whispers. “I know it’s real.” Over and over again. He’s rocking a little, forward and backward, scratching nervously at his head with his good hand, but Tony can tell he’s not trying to hurt himself. He does, however, dig up some of what they planted the day before, but he does it so gently.

Later, Tony finds the flowers, roots and all, sitting under Peter’s bed. Bruce brings them some potters to place them in so Peter can keep them there, even though they all know they’ll be dead from lack of light within a week. 

“Are you doing okay?” Bruce asks him quietly after Pepper has left. 

“Me? I’m fine. No worries. We knew where this was going, and Pepper knows - she knows I’ll always love her,” he finishes, softly. Bruce gives him a firm hug. Peter notices the hugging going on and joins in.

“Love you,” he says, and slips away to the other side of the lab. He’s picked up some circuitry - Tony’s not sure exactly what he’s working on, but it seems like a healthy coping mechanism, so. 

“How are you feeling?” Tony asks, turning to Bruce. 

Bruce shrugs. “May will be missed, but I didn’t lose today like the rest of you.”

Tony nods, tracing the outline of his goatee. He’s let his hair grow back in to what it always was - a desperate way to clutch at his old identity right before the break-up maybe, or maybe it’s as simple as Peter let his curls grow out too.

“You know, I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh no.”

“Seriously, Brucey, I think maybe you should consider taking a hiatus for awhile. From here. At the very least, I think it might be good for you to take regular vacations.”

“Tony.”

“I don’t want any burn outs.”

“When are you going to take a vacation?”

“When I’m dead,” he jokes, but it falls flat, and what’s worse - Peter’s head pops right up from whatever he’s hunched over. It’s easy to forget his enhanced hearing, because even though it’s always worked just fine, Peter seems not to use it the same way anymore. 

Now, he’s making a distressed noise the likes of which Tony hasn’t heard for a long time - back to when they had first found him and he was mostly nonverbal. He stumbles his way over to Tony, who meets him halfway there. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Tony pushes Peter’s hair out of his face and kisses his forehead. The kid is trembling in his arms.

“It’s not real. It’s not real?” Peter whispers. 

Well, fuck. “Petey Pie. Hey. I’m real, and I’m right here.” 

“Don’t leave me - don’t leave me!” Peter’s voice raises in volume. Bruce comes up to his other side and gently presses him into Tony - the two of them making a makeshift compression jacket around Peter. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says into Peter’s hair. Later though: “Bruce, seriously. I think you should be taking time away from this.”

It’s just the two of them now, Peter a short ways away in his room. Bruce pretends to humor him over the leftovers he eats over the kitchen sink. “Let me guess - you think I should be taking breaks from him now for when you’re dead and I have him permanently?”

Well. Yes. It’s hard for Tony to say exactly that, though. 

Bruce heavily sighs; it’s his patented form of communication with him. “Tony, you’re getting way ahead of yourself. For Peter’s sake, please - pull yourself together. Stop talking about anyone dying, it’s not helpful and it’s not happening any time soon.”

He rinses his bowl out and leaves Tony standing in the dark. Later, after Tony’s made himself a fresh pour over, he finds his friend parked in Peter’s room. It’s late - maybe two in the morning? - but they’re sitting on the floor looking over the impromptu garden under his bed.

Tony can’t hear what Bruce is saying - it’s the softest, lowest voice that he has only for Peter. Whatever he’s saying, Peter sinks closer to him, and he knows this isn’t a moment where he’s needed.

They’re on high alert after May’s passing; one or both sticks close as much as possible, but other than an upturned garden, Peter quietly mourns. He won’t eat or sleep, but at least he hasn’t hurt himself any more; the arm and his leg are slow to heal with him eating so little. Natasha, their third guard, just kind of shrugs at them after a week has passed and things seem pretty normal. 

She leaves after another week, and it’s then that Tony allows himself to mourn his relationship with Pepper. They’ve exchanged a couple of quick messages about business, but other than that it’s quiet. He’d be lying if he wasn’t glued to Peter’s side solely for the kid’s benefit. He’s had a bad day fighting with Peter to eat something, to say something - he’s gone totally comatose, but Tony can’t tell if it’s an actual spell or he’s just being avoidant - before Tony hastily retreats to his lab, leaving Peter alone.

The suits are gone - locked up behind retractable walls, out of sight and out of mind. Pepper’s dream, except it wasn’t for Pepper. 

The weapons are gone. Tony’s only worked on sustainable energy sources and tinkered with biochemistry projects with Bruce in the past couple of years. 

All sense of identity, even the smallest things like his signature look - all gone. Tony Stark hasn’t felt like Tony Stark for years now. He doesn’t get called for missions any more. He doesn’t have a team, and he sure as hell doesn’t have a fiancé. 

Tony knows how Peter must feel when he tries to lash out and break something; Tony wants to put a fist through the nearest monitor. 

“Sir, your heart rate has been elevated for longer than recommend for someone with your medical history. Shall I start your calming module?” FRIDAY’s voice is enough of a reminder of what he’s lost for him. He slides down the wall, hyperventilating at this point. He clutches his chest and wonders if he’s already having a heart attack.

“Kill it, FRI. Kill the music.” Tony doesn’t want to hear anything, including his AI’s voice. He doesn’t need the reminders of a playlist he long ago made with a different Peter at his side, Rhodey’s input chiming over their heads. He’s a different man now - and he feels like less of a person than ever before. 

“You’re going through the stages of grief,” Bruce tells him later, after finding his friend lying on the floor. “It’s normal, given the circumstances.”

“You told me that about a year ago, remember? I haven’t been cycling this entire time.”

Bruce smiles at him, kind of funny. “Tony, you’ve been cycling through grief and depression nonstop for the past four years. It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, but I guess - given the circumstances.”

“Well, you’re way better than all of my therapists.”

“I think you just prefer me because you think I’ll validate whatever you’re thinking.”

“Hmph. If you did that, you’d be on vacation right now.”

“And you’d be alone on the floor.”

“Naw. I’ve got Petey Pie, don’t I?” Because even on their worst days together, Tony can take a break, then get excited to see his kid again. 

Peter and Bruce surprise Tony with a camping trip the next day; there is equipment already packed up in the back of a rusty, old pick-up truck that Tony’s never seen before. He gives them a hard time about the fact that they won’t tell him where they’re going, and it’s clearly not close because they’ve been on the road for awhile. He has to keep talking, because if he doesn’t talk about this then he’ll say what’s really on his mind, which is what happened the last time they left the compound. 

“Didn’t know I needed to brush up on my Kerouac this week. McCandless, maybe.”

Bruce gives him a look. “We don’t need need to think that dark, Tony.”

“You know who I’m talking about, kid?”

Peter shrugs, and Tony gives Bruce an I-told-you-so look. Then Peter says: “He ate the berries. He died.”

Damn.

Tony sighs. 

“I like berries.” Tony thinks he might be saying that to be funny, to test Tony’s humor. 

“Well, no berries on this trip, just to be safe.”

Peter smiles. He’s missing a front tooth after an incident with a garden rake; they’re still not sure if it was intentional or not, but the kid went ahead and buried said tooth in the garden.

They cross the border into Canada and end up in a park that’s gorgeous spring time weather by day and freezing at night. Peter likes to sit outside with his teeth rattling, perched up in a tree watching any wildlife he can find. Watching him swing from tree to tree easily is harder to watch than it should be by now. It seems to come back naturally to him, muscle memory.

They only spend one night in a tent, the three of them huddled together but still not warm enough to sleep, before they drive an extra hour down the road to rent a cabin. It’s on a river, and Tony kind of understands the allure of fishing for the first time ever. 

Peter ends up with all three reels in his hands. He’s sitting cross legged at the end of a dock, spaced out, and Tony jokingly arranged all the reels in the kid’s lap to call his bluff, because he can tell it’s not an episode. 

Peter blinks, shifts around a little, but doesn’t engage at all for another hour. Tony remembers how the kid went quiet on the island all day before his freak out, so now he’s starting to freak out. 

Bruce quietly walks him through the thinking behind the trip. They have to keep trying, they have to keep creating new ways for Peter to grow. He keeps up a steady mantra while he stokes a fire close by the dock, both of them keeping an eye on Peter.

When a line gets a nibble, Peter quickly tosses the other two reels to the side - one ends up in the river - and reels in what ends up being a deceptively small fish. Peter gently cups the fish in his hand, the hook sticking out through a gill. He’s fixated, staring at it, the little thing thumping against his palm.

Bruce helps him remove the hook, then Peter gingerly places the fish back in the water. Peter’s eyes trail over the water, as if he can see the fish swimming away - maybe he can. “And you’re sure it’ll be alright?” he asks Bruce. 

“Yes, Peter. Fish survive catch and release all the time.”

And no one says it, but all three of them are thinking about Peter’s catch and release.

It’s brilliantly sunny and warm the next day, and Peter is stretched out on the dock. He’s gazing long and hard at the fingers on his left hand; Tony parks himself next to the kid and hardly blinks. 

“Do you think it’s weird that I don’t have any scars?” Peter asks, curling his fingers in and out. “No one could stand to look at me for a long time. I wasn’t allowed to look at me, and I know I frightened everyone. I was meat.”

Tony wants to interrupt - meat is a trigger word for him now.

Peter continues: “But then everything grew back and I had no scars. Now people look at me and they see nothing. I look the same as everyone else. But I’m not.”

“Peter.”

“It’s nice to know I blend in, but it also makes me mad.”

They spend another couple of quiet days on the river, although no one wants to fish any more and it’s getting colder, even during the days, before they travel back to the compound. The trip is a success. Peter goes without incident or episode. Bruce and Tony both come back and feel somewhat refreshed. 

Neither good things nor bad things last. 

Tony realizes this more and more as time passes. 

Things are better, then worse. 

Peter tears apart the compound looking for his suits one day. When he finds the Iron Spider, he shakes apart for days. He’s scared, then mad. He wants to put it on, but doesn’t. Tony asks Peter if he wants to destroy the suits once and for all, but the Peter can’t.

The kid buries them out in the garden. 

Of course, he’s not a kid anymore. He’s grown as much as he ever will - slight still, and they’re not sure if he would have always been that way, or maybe it is lasting evidence of the months without nutrition. Doubtful, they suppose, since everything else regenerated. It doesn’t change the fact that Peter is as grown as he’ll ever be though.

It’s been ten years since they found him. 

Tony starts the day with his double shot - he’s cut back in caffeine these days. Everyone sticks to a very strict schedule, Tony included. Bruce is already awake and outside for his morning yoga. Peter quietly comes out of his bedroom and joins him. They practice close to the garden, and Tony will watch from inside while he sips his espresso. 

They come inside and eat breakfast together. It’s too early to tell if Peter is having a good day or a bad day. Tony tells him what he’s planning on working on today in the lab. Peter doesn’t respond or react at all. He sits at the table long after Tony and Bruce clear the table and they both retreat to work. 

It’s a routine. It’s a life. 

It’s a kid - worth everything.


End file.
